The Art of Self Defense
by Frost Hobbit
Summary: Sequel to Two For the Road. Original character centric. Eliot thinks Avery needs to learn to defend herself.


**A/N This is the sequel to my fic Two for the Road, and the third story I've written about Avery Carpenter. This one is a oneshot, but certainly not the last I'll write of Avery. Hope you enjoy! (And I hope everyone loved the S5 premiere of Leverage as much as I did!)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage, or, sadly, Eliot Spencer.  
**

Avery answered the knock at the door and found Eliot standing outside. He raised his eyebrows. "For someone who wanted me to call her as much as you did, you're a hard girl to get hold of."

"I was out of town for two weeks," Avery said. "I don't usually take personal calls when I'm working."

"How professional," Eliot said, rolling his eyes. He held up her black duffel bag. "You left this at Nate's. There's a pair of shoes in here Sophie wanted to take for herself, but lucky for you she wears a different size."

"Oh, thank you!" Avery snatched the bag away from him and motioned for him to come inside while she pawed through it. It contained the outfit she'd worn while playing the mob boss's daughter back when they were taking down Malone, but not much else. "These shoes are way too expensive to lose. Thank you."

Eliot furrowed his eyebrows. "Why – why you gotta pay so much money for shoes? What's the point? They're shoes."

Avery hit him with the duffel bag. "You wouldn't understand." She turned and walked down the hallway to throw the duffel bag into her bedroom. "Come in, sit down!" she called over her shoulder to Eliot. "While you're here, we might as well talk, or something."

"Or something," Eliot said.

Avery dragged him into the kitchen and made him sit at the table, then handed him a beer before cracking open one herself. "That's for not letting Sophie steal my shoes." She looked down at the t-shirt and shorts she was wearing. "Sorry for the casual appearance, but I just got back from a jog."

"You run?" Eliot asked, sounding a little surprised.

"Got to blow off steam somehow." Avery sipped her beer. Running was something Olivia had suggested Avery take up a few years ago. She had found she really liked it and tried to persuade Olivia to join in, but Olivia preferred dark rooms and computer screens to sunlight and exercise.

Eliot laughed, took a drink, then lowered his beer to look at her searchingly. "Mind if I ask a personal question?"

Avery raised her eyebrows and sat down at the table across from him. "Depends on what?"

Eliot nodded. "What happened to your head?"

Avery lifted her hand to the spot on the left side of her forehead. She thought the lump had gone down enough that her hair could hide it, but with her hair back in a ponytail, the bruise and scrape were still visible. "It was worse before," she said, remembering the broken skin and dried blood that had been there when she regained consciousness.

"What happened?" Eliot asked again.

"What's it look like?" she shot back.

"Looks like someone hit you." Eliot took another sip of beer. "Don't gimme that 'fell down the stairs' crap."

"Oh please." Avery rolled her eyes. "I'm in a dangerous line of work. I know the risks involved. Things got a little bit out of hand on my last job and some thug decided to hit me with his gun. Knocked me out awhile, but hey, could've been worse."

Eliot grunted. "A lot worse. Didn't you fight back?"

"Normally I have a gun of my own, but somebody decided to take it away and dismantle it!" Avery said, tilting her beer towards him. "You owe me a new one. Or my old one back."

Eliot shook his head. "You don't need a gun. Anyway, you're a grifter! Aren't you supposed to prefer something elegant to something fast and dirty?"

Avery scoffed. "There's nothing elegant about a fistfight."

"You really wanna go there with me?" Eliot leaned across the table. "Elegant or not, you should at least know how to defend yourself, and you shouldn't need a gun to do it!"

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were worried about me." Avery smirked at him.

He tilted his head. "It's common sense, Avery. If you don't know how to handle somebody coming at you with physical force you're gonna get hurt sooner or later. And you might not be as lucky as you were that time," he added, gesturing to the bump on her head.

"Okay, fine, but I never took self defense or karate or whatever the hell it is you do, so what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to learn?" Avery asked, humoring him.

Eliot looked at her. "I mean – I could teach you how to throw a punch, that's no problem."

Avery laughed. "Are you kidding me?"

Eliot shook his head, a small, slightly mischievous smile gracing his lips. "Let's do it."

"Right now?" Avery asked, eyes wide.

Eliot shrugged. "Why not? Your apartment building have a gym or somethin'?"

"There's a room where they have yoga classes in the basement, but – "

"Let's go, then." Eliot set his beer aside and stood up.

"Right now? Eliot, I just got back from a run! I'm tired!"

Eliot shrugged. "So?"

"You've got to be kidding me," Avery muttered. She took one last swig of her beer and stood. "Fine. Let's go."

xxx

In the basement yoga room, Eliot stood across from Avery. He unbuttoned the flannel shirt he wore and cast it aside, leaving himself in a gray t-shirt. His eyes swept over Avery's body as he circled around the dusty old mat they'd dragged to the middle of the floor. There wasn't a hint of lust in his eyes as he looked her over, Avery realized. He wasn't looking at her in a sexual way; he was sizing her up as an opponent. Which was much more unnerving.

"You're little," he commented. "That's not necessarily a bad thing. Somebody a lot bigger than you comes at you, you can probably move a lot quicker."

"What is the likelihood of that?" Avery asked.

"All I'm trying to tell you is you need to be prepared," Eliot said. "The kind of life you lead, you gotta expect the unexpected."

Expect the unexpected? Avery was used to that. Ending up in the yoga room getting self defense lessons from Eliot Spencer hadn't exactly been on her to-do list for the day. And she wasn't entirely sure he wasn't just going to use this as an excuse to punch her, like she knew he'd wanted to multiple times the last time they worked together.

"Okay," Eliot said. "I'm gonna come at you like I'm gonna hit you. You do what you'd normally do in that situation. Then we can fix it." He raised his fists and laughed, shaking his head. "Don't look so scared. I ain't gonna hurt you." With that, he lunged for her, face contorting like he was about to attack.

An almost involuntary reaction, Avery threw up her arms, blocking her face, and shouted "Wait, wait, wait!"

Eliot lowered his fists. "Really? That's what you do?" He shook his head. "Pathetic."

"Hey!" Avery shouted at him. "Usually I can talk my way out of trouble!"

"Which is fine when you're dealing with some ordinary idiot off the street, but what if you're dealing with a trained hit man? They usually don't care that you're a pretty girl. Sometimes they don't even speak English," Eliot said pointedly.

"So tell me what to do. That's why you dragged me down here, isn't it?" Avery stuck her chin out defiantly.

"Right." Eliot squared his shoulders. "What I'm going to teach you is some ways to defend yourself because what you're probably going to want to do if you get attacked is just get away, right? So I don't think you need to know too much about actually taking somebody out. Basically what you need to know is how to keep someone from hurting you. Slow 'em down enough for you to run." He raised his eyebrows. "You a decent runner?"

"Yeah, I am. In heels, too," Avery said.

Eliot laughed. "Good! All right, before we get to defense, show me how you'd throw a punch." He lifted his fists, shaking his hair out of his face. "C'mon."

Cautiously Avery raised her own fists to mimic his position. For a few moments, she circled him, trying to figure out the best way to strike. Eliot never turned his back and never took his eyes off her. Eventually, fed up with trying to gain an advantage, she threw what she knew was a sloppy punch at him. Eliot caught her fist in midair and twisted her arm, forcing her to bend in half.

"Ow!" she said angrily. She wiggled free and glared at him. "You said you weren't going to hurt me!"

"Sorry," Eliot said. He stepped away from her. "I could tell what you were doing there. You don't wanna lead with your body so much. Come here."

Over the next hour, Eliot coached Avery through a few different punches and several ways to get away from someone who might grab hold of her. It was hard, and it was tiring, and Avery was loath to admit that she was kind of enjoying herself. It wasn't that she needed any boost to her self-confidence, but it was kind of nice to know that she had the ability to force someone to their knees if she needed to.

"The back of the knee's another good place to strike," Eliot said to her. "If you can get in back of 'em – OW!"

Avery slammed the blade of her foot into the back of Eliot's knee, knocking him to the ground. He glared at her. "I didn't say do it to _me_!"

"How else am I supposed to learn?" Laughing, Avery brushed sweaty hair out of her face and put out a hand to pull Eliot to his feet. "It's not like you've been taking it easy on _me_ for the past hour."

"Last I recall you liked it a little rough anyway," Eliot said with a smirk, fixing his eyes on hers.

Avery smacked him lightly on the chest. "Please."

Chuckling, Eliot backed away from her, raising his fists again. "One more and we'll call it a day?"

"Come on!" Avery said, tilting her head back and looking up at the ceiling. "Haven't we done enough? I'll be sufficiently sore tomorrow! Thank you! You're a slave driver!"

Eliot threw a light punch her way, which Avery quickly dodged. "You're really not letting me out of this?"

"Just trying to keep you on your toes, babe," Eliot said, his smirk still in place.

The next punch he threw Avery dodged again, then he grabbed her by the wrists and yanked her closer. Avery broke his grip using one of the moves he'd taught her, then shoved Eliot backward, trying to throw him to the ground. They grappled together for a few moments before Eliot stumbled backward. Avery tripped on her shoelace; momentum carried her forward and she fell into Eliot, knocking them both to the ground, Avery on top of him.

Avery's forehead knocked into Eliot's. "Ouch!" she cried out, and put a hand to her head. "Last thing I need is another head injury."

"You'll live," Eliot said. "I've had much worse."

Avery found herself suddenly very aware of how close they were physically, skin on sweaty skin where their arms touched. Eliot's eyes were once again fixed on her, only this time Avery could see much more of the seductive Eliot she'd seen the night she met him. His lips curled into a grin as he looked up at her.

Avery quickly scrambled to her feet and once again, held out her hand to help Eliot up. There was no point in pursuing this now. _That_ aspect of their relationship would have to wait for another time. And preferably someplace other than the dingy yoga room in the basement of her apartment building.

"Thanks," Avery said. "For the lesson. Useful stuff."

"Hey, be as condescending as you want," Eliot said, "you're really gonna be happy you know this." He gave her a light pat on the shoulder as they walked for the door. "And don't let yourself forget this stuff, okay? I ain't gonna be around to remind you all the time, so keep practicing."

"Maybe you'll need to give me a refresher course now and then," Avery said. "Since this was pretty much a crash course in self defense. I still don't see why I can't just kick a guy in the balls and run."

Eliot laughed. "Well, that'd do the job too."

"See? Maybe I didn't need you after all." Avery opened the door and they walked up the stairs into the lobby.

"You busy the rest of the day?" Eliot asked as Avery walked him to the door. "If you want, we could – "

"Eliot, I need to take a shower right now or I'll scream," Avery said firmly. "I've been sweating all day."

"Okay, okay." Eliot shrugged. "Just thought we could get coffee or somethin'."

"Of all the days to ask me out," Avery said, folding her arms with a grin.

"I ain't askin' you out," Eliot said defensively. "I was askin' if you wanted coffee."

Avery shook her head. "Can't today."

Eliot furrowed his eyebrows. "You been tellin' me I need to call you and suddenly you can't get coffee because – "

"I'm sorry!" Avery said with a shrug. She grinned at him. "You're gonna have to keep trying!"

Eliot scowled. "I was only askin' if – "

"Eliot, I am sweaty and tired and disgusting," Avery said. "Quick tip – next time you want to ask somebody out, don't work out with them first." She smiled and patted his arm. "Keep trying, babe. Next time I might say yes."

Eliot rolled his eyes as Avery turned and started walking away. "Don't think I didn't see that!" she called over her shoulder.

"What the hell's the matter with you, anyway?" Eliot called incredulously.

Avery turned around, blew him a kiss, and winked before stepping into the elevator. "I'll see you around, Eliot!"


End file.
